The Hogwarts Express reloaded
by avatea
Summary: Albus and Rose on their first train ride to school. Starts where Deathly Hallows left off. One-shot.


**I do not own any of the characters or things described in this fanfiction. It is the sole property of JK Rowling. I'm just a fan and do not make any money out of this.**

_I wrote this maybe 9 months ago. I personally think my writing style has approved since then, but still I thought it a nice little scene._

Albus ran through the train in excitement while searching for his and Rosie's compartment. He had bought some sweets from the old witch and was now running with his arms full. Barely did he see the foot that reached out of a department right in front of him. To avoid falling he jumped over it and turned on the spot to see who had been wanting to play a trick on him.  
It was a boy he had seen climbing into the Hogwarts express for the first time when it had been James' first year, too- he had dark skin and looked like an alligator whose victim had been rescued from him the moment before snatching.  
Seeing his trick not working the other boys in the compartment started to laugh out loud and the look in the boy's face became even more cruel. Albus grabbed his sweets tighter, turned around and ran even faster than before.  
Finally he found Rose, but in their compartment new faces had settled. A Chinese looking girl with very neat clothes and a blonde, long-haired boy had chosen to sit next to her. So Albus took seat on the opposite side. Rose looked up from her big book.  
"Did she have the new flavours of Bertie Bott's?"  
"…what?"  
Albus had forgotten to put down his armful of sweets while staring at the new boy and girl.  
Rose started to look stern.  
"I asked you to buy some for me!"  
"Oh…"Albus remembered, "…yes. The sweets. She did not have them yet. But I bought you some of the old ones." He gave a package of them to her and half of his chocolate frogs.  
His father used to say that they had tasted better when he was young- but to Albus there was nothing better against stress than a piece of chocolate and a cool picture of a wizard.  
And stress was troubling him.  
"You know, Rose…" he began, his mouth full with three frogs, "…there was a…hmwoy in the trwain and whe…"  
Rose looked up again.  
"You clear your throat or solve your problems alone. I don't want to look at a still moving brown frog in your mouth. That is disgusting."  
"And weird", the neat looking girl said.  
"Thanks", Rose replied, "…and you are?"  
"Milly Saunders, first year. And who are you?"  
Before Albus could open his mouth again, Rose started to introduce them.  
She is obviously in her bossy mode, he thought.  
"The boy opposite me who can't eat is Albus Potter and my name is Rose Weasley. Nice to meet you." She opened her bag, revealing a row of difficult looking books.  
"Have you already read them?", she asked the Chinese girl, whose eyes now had brightened.  
"Yes- but I still don't get everything in the Transfiguration book. Looks like this is going to be my weakness."  
"Transfiguration?", Rose asked incredulously.  
"But that one seemed the easiest one to me. I had rather chosen Defense against the Dark Arts as a difficult subject…"  
The neat girl sat herself closer to Rose and they started discussing various pages in various books Albus had never heard of. The blonde boy caught his eye and said in a voice of boredom: "As if I had nothing else to do in my holidays…"  
Albus could but nod, for he still hadn't swallowed. Three frogs a time was too much, he resolved innerly.  
The blonde joined Albus on his side, stretched out his hand and said friendly:  
"Name's Pike. Albert Siegmund Pikes- but if you ever call me that I'll have to charm you."  
Both Rose and Milly Saunders gave an arrogant laugh.  
"It is to hex or to curse- how can you think charms were curses!"  
Their laughter grew into giggles of a high frequence.  
Albus overcame the temptation to eat more chocolate to be able to talk to the boy.  
The very one had now crossed his arms in front of him and shaken his head so that his long, thick hair covered half his face.  
"Hey, just because I come from a muggle family does not mean you are not allowed to laugh at me. Girls!", he said with contempt, looking at Albus and rolling his eyes.  
Albus shrugged- he knew Rose too long to be offending her now. It was a bad idea in general.  
Instead he said, "So your parents are Muggles?"  
Albus had never met someone with only muggle parents. Some of his friends were half-half, but this was new to him.  
Pike nodded.  
"And who did come and explain to your parents?"  
"Some austere looking old woman with a squared cloak. But she was cool- she turned my dog into a cat and back to prove she was a witch."  
"That is Professor McGonagall!", was the unisono answer of the girls.  
"She teaches Transfiguration", explained Albus. "That explains the dog-cat-dog thing."  
Pike nodded again, looking satisfied.  
The girls began discussing their new subjects again, and Albus told Pike about the wizard world. Though he tried to look chilled, he listened with astonishment.

Half an hour later, the door of the compartment opened and two boys came in- this time no strangers to Albus. One of them, the smaller one, had wheaten hair and wore a foreign looking talisman, the other, a lot taller, had extremely red hair and carried a small dragon tooth on a string around his neck.  
"Lysander, Louis!", he shouted, jumping up the same time as Rose. The boys, Albus and Rose took seat again and Albus began:  
"I was already worried because we didn't see you at the platform! Where have you been?"  
Louis spoke while Lysander started playing with his talisman.  
"We searched for _you_! We were late and just jumped in with our trunks and owls before the train started moving. Then we had to find a place to store the baggage. And then we tried to find you." He sounded exhausted.  
Rose coughed slightly and said, turned towards Milly and Pike, "This is our cousin Louis and our good friend Lysander. Oh…", she looked at Albus, "..and we are cousins, too. Totally forgot to tell you."  
Pike whispered to Albus.  
"Are all your cousins redheads?"  
Albus shaked his head and asked Lysander how Luna was.  
"She is currently with Daddy at an expedition in south Greenland. He is searching for…", was the answer, but Lysander had to stop because someone else came in. It was a pale, unhealthy looking boy their age, and when he saw that the compartment was full he went away again.  
Rose tried to look important.  
"That was the Malfoy boy, remember, Al, Daddy told us about him at the platform."  
Albus merely nodded, because Louis had started to tell stories of dragons from his Dad's last trip to Rumania, and they were far more fascinating than Rosie's further explanations on Hogwarts to which only Pat listened.


End file.
